Baseball enjoys strong showing early in the season
Thursday February 29, 2024 - 2:15 p.m. | Dylan DeVlieger
MCC Baseball has had a strong start to their 2024 season, winning 14 out of 18 games, six out of eight conference games all while stringing together a nine game winning streak.
Before their 7-4 loss to Gateway on Feb. 28, the T-Birds were rolling hot, winners of their last nine games. In those games MCC had averaged 7.6 runs per game on 10.8 hits.
During that stretch Mesa scored at least six runs in seven games and collected at least eight hits in eight of those nine games.
The T-Birds got help from all around their roster during their streak. Bret Housel appeared in eight games racking up five RBIs to go along with nine hits including a three hit game against Chandler-Gilbert on Feb. 16.
Michael Williamson has also been hot for the T-Birds with 9 hits in seven games during the streak including a four hit performance in Mesa's 11-9 win over Gateway on Feb. 27.
Josh Degroot has been fun to watch as of late if you're a Mesa fan. In seven games during the streak Degroot has had five RBIs to go along with 10 hits.
Jayden Israel has been a run scoring machine for the T-Birds, coming across to score nine runs in eight games for Mesa during their winning streak.
MCC is not winning at a high clip just because of their offensive output, their pitching has been impressive especially in situations where Mesa needs to get out of a jam.
In an early candidate for game of the year, MCC battled to take down then ranked No. 18 Chandler-Gilbert 6-5 in 13 innings. Back and forth both teams battled, Mesa had worked themselves into a bases loaded nobody out jam in the 8th inning when head coach Tony Cirelli would call upon freshman southpaw Christian Woodward to get the T-Birds out of it.
After the Coyotes would tie the game in inning Woorward would shut them down the rest of the way, striking out eight batters to help the T-Birds earn their second straight win over CGCC. Woodward pitched 11.2 innings striking out 16 batters over their winning streak while earning two wins and two saves in the process.
Troy Benko made three appearances for Mesa over that stretch of victories, pitching 11 innings and striking out 15 batters the sophomore earned two wins. One of those wins was a dominant performance against Arizona Christian University on Feb. 23 in which he pitched five innings, struck out nine, and surrendered no runs.
MCC's ace Eric Nachtsheim picked up two victories over the stretch, pitching 11 innings and striking out 12 batters.
On the base path Mesa has been electric all season, swiping 74 total bags; they have a 91% success rate this year. Defensively the T-Birds have been also solid, committing 18 errors they rank fourth in the conference in the category.
The T-Birds streak did end at the hands of the Geckos on Wednesday, but Mesa can get back to their winning ways on Friday as they host Scottsdale, first pitch at 3:00 p.m.
